A fun author who’s written several novels, my favorites of which are American Gods, Stardust and the collaborative work with Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens. Good Omens is my favorite out of the three because I like the lightheartedness of it, but American Gods and Stardust are awesome too.

I wasn’t very thrilled with the movie adaptation of Stardust because it felt too rushed to me. I wish they had worked more on the transitions because I understand time constraints but it was just too much to put into 2hrs.

I’ve wanted to get Annasi Boys but haven’t got around to it yet XD It’s a sequel to American Gods. I’ve also read Neverwhere which is a really good read. It makes me want to go explore London

Found pic here.

Written by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. Fun reads with a dark side to it like the Spiderwick books. The books take place in this world called “The Edge”, which is basically a giant floating island, or at least is as far as anyone can tell. The main means of transporting goods is by use of floating airships that use this buoyant rock to maintain their altitude. There is also this gigantic floating school/city called Sanctaphrax built on a enormous chunk of floating rock, held down by a chain. There are sky pirates and all sorts of creatures good and evil. The books have a witty charm to them and the details about the world are captivating, and the artwork is awesome too. I definitely recommend them.

The link to the official random house Edge Chronicles site, really nice looking and interactive:

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/edgechronicles/

Found pic here.

Are a fun young adult series that my husband and I read out loud to each other They were written by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. It has a dark feel to it but also a loving one because of how much the siblings care for each other. I haven’t seen the movie yet but I hope to soon. The artwork for the books is incredible, which is because it was drawn by Tony DiTerlizzi, who is one of K’s favorite artists.

I love the fey creatures in the book and the attitudes they’re given, especially Thimbletack. And Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You and The Spiderwick Chronicles: Care and Feeding of Sprites are beautifully drawn. The artwork is immaculately detailed in DiTerlizzi’s wonderful style.

I highly recommend this book not only to younger readers but to everyone!

Found pic here.

A little bit ago I posted asking for Suggestions? and ripplecloud brought up Diana Wynne Jones. So I’ma write about Diana Wynne Jones. I’ve got Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air at home. I picked them up recently at the local bookstore cause I liked the Ghibli movie. I can’t believe how different the book and the movie are, basically Miazaki just took the characters and the world and wrote a new story. My husband and I both loved Miazaki movies but he’s got a quote that sums up Miazaki’s stuff really well, “He (Miazaki) tries to guilt you into living in the dirt” XD Cause most of his movies are about how us humans are ruining the earth and making all this destructive technology. My favorite movie of his is Spirited Away.

But back to Jones, the books are awesomely written, the world is fantastic, the characters are lovable and witty and overall great reads! Castle in the Air is very clever and amusing and am looking forward to reading it again and also to give it as a gift to my two young nephews when they get a little older.

Diana Wynne Jones on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Wynne_Jones

Found pic here.

Fairlady-z posted a couple days ago about Ray Bradbury in my Suggestions? post. Hopefully many of us have had to read something of Bradbury’s in an English class at some point or other, or maybe even was shown some clips from The Ray Bradbury Theater . He’s noted as being “one of America’s best speculative fiction writers of the 20^th century” (wikipedia, Ray Bradbury). He’s an incredibly prolific writer having written hundreds of short stories, a dozen or so novels, and poetry and plays galore. Plus “he adapted 65 of his stories” for The Ray Bradbury Theater.

I have Bradbury Stories: 100 of his most Celebrated Tales as well as his most famous Fahrenheit 451. I really liked By the Numbers!, Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-made Truly Egyptian Mummy, Bright Phoenix and June 2001: And the Moon Be Still As Bright out of the 100 tales book. And I am very glad that we have authors like Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell because they teach us to keep an eye on the way the world is going. It’s every ones responsibility to keep our governments in check because they’re not gonna do it on there own.

Found pic here.

Fairlady-z posted a couple days ago about Anne McCaffrey in my Suggestions? post, so I wanted to talk a little on McCaffrey. One of her books I read recently is No One Noticed the Cat, and I thought that was pretty fun. I’ve also read her The Tower and Hive series about 10 years ago, maybe longer XD I don’t think I’ve read the last two books in The Talent series that if I remember correctly is a prequel to the Rowan stuff. I liked that series and I’ve been meaning to try reading something from her Freedom series to see how that is but haven’t gotten around to it yet XD. But she’s such a prolific writer I may never get around to reading all of her stuff lol. I also wanna check out her The Brain & Brawn Ship series and The Crystal Singer series too. Anyone read those?

Found pic here.

Shadowrun is an RPG (Role Playing Game) is heavily influenced by Gibson’s vision of the future, where corporations hire “shadowrunners” who are basically mercenaries for hire who have specialized skills be it hacking, magic, weaponry or sneaking. They then infiltrate rival companies and either sabotage or steal information as requested by their employer.

Very fun campaign system that makes you think on multiple levels at once because the companies have not only physical security systems but also magical/astral and online ones as well. There are also the traditional fantasy humanoids in this game as well, including Elves, Dwarves and Trolls. They are called metahumans and started appearing as magic began to reemerge into the world.

Oo, I was reading over the wiki article and they have a very good breakdown of why the world (alternate future) happened the way it did:

“The emergence of magic, the outbreak of the VITAS plagues (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome), the Computer Crash of 2029 (caused by a complex and nearly unstoppable computer virus called “The Crash Entity”), the Euro-Wars, in which the western-European countries once fought off an invasion from neo-communist Russia and then a pan-Islamic invasion like that of 800 years ago, and the fevers for independence of Amerindian tribes, Chinese provinces, etc. left the world’s governments tumbling and falling. With the fall of the existing political structures, mega-corporations emerged as the new superpowers.” - wikipedia, Shadowrun

Very fun game and is just as fun to read up on the history (future?) of it.

Found pic here.

Yay Cyberpunk! What a rock’n genre, which recently has gained some popularity thanks to the Matrix movies. Gibson is considered the father of cyberpunk and coined the term cyberspace. In fact, a lot of the words that are common vernacular in respect to internet came from his books.

The first book he wrote is Neuromancer, which is the first book in his “Sprawl” trilogy. Neuromancer brought about the concept of the “console cowboy” as well as the matrix used interchangeably with cyberspace, which is “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions.” (Wikipedia, Neuromancer) and is obviously where the Wachowski brothers got the idea.

Well this sprawl trilogy takes place on near future earth where pretty much everyone is jacked into the matrix for entertainment and education. You can also get cybernetic enhancements and a slot in your head where you can stick in a disk that lets you learn anything (sound familiar?) Also an important thing about the world is that corporations pretty much own and control everything. These corporations conduct armed and covert ops against rival companies in attempts to gain the technology they are producing. It’s a very dog eat dog world, and shows how capitalism could eventually take over everything if not kept in check.

There are also AIs which were built for several reasons, one of which is to maintain the ICE (Intrusion Countermeasure Intrusion) around corporations HQs. One of the themes of Neuromancer is that an AI is trying to get free, so that it can join it’s other half (was split in half by the government for fear of it being to powerful) and become complete. Gibson also uses these “entities” that live in cyberspace which are voodoo like deities who can affect people and data inside cyberspace, possibility even real life too.

Very fun reads which give you this gritty feeling to the world that I’ve not found in any other author I’ve read so far.

William Gibson on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_gibson

Found pic here.

Anyone have any favorite authors or books they like to recommend? I’m always interested to find some more stuff to read Any genre, fantasy, sci-fi, non-fiction, mystery you name it.

I realized that since I’ve only been writing about authors and books I like the only thing I’ve been saying about them is “they’re good”.  Which means everything I’ve written about is good, so there’s been nothing saying it’s not good.  But the thing is I just don’t feel like writing about books I didn’t like, cause they just don’t interest me. 

Here goes, but its hard trying to remember the names of some I didn’t like…oh I found this one in my office and took it to the gym with me one day while I was riding a bike and wow, I could not get into it.  It felt like it was written by someone with poorer writing skills then me. XD  The name is Blackstaff, a Forgotten Realms novel by Steven E. Schend.  I got through 60 pages and have not picked it back up.  It’s been on a shelf since I got here over a year and a half ago and no one knows where it came from, and it’s been sitting there since long before I arrived XD

 The thing is, I’ve never been able to get into any of the Forgotten Realms novels, I’ve read 2 or 3 now but they never really left much of an impact.  I’m not really sure why but they just felt blah to me.  I like playing D&D Forgotten Realms based adventures but I don’t know much of anything about its lore.  But I’ve known lots of people who really enjoy the series so I guess it’s just my tastes is all.